Thursday, 25 February 2010

BAMSE 6 2010 marks the "comeback" for one the best Bamse artists of the 90's: Thomas Holm. So, I thought I should give you a sneak peak of what the return to the pages of BAMSE looks like.

[If you live in Scandinavia I assume you are familar with "BAMSE - the strongest bear in the world". If you live in another part of the world I guess you've never heard of him. To make a brief summary: Created by Swedish comic artist/writer Rune Andréasson, Bamse made his debut on the TV-screen and as a weekly sunday page in 1966. In 1973 he got his own comic book, that soon became one of the most popular in Sweden. Sales peaked in the early 90's when Egmont took over the production from Andréasson. It's still one of the top selling comic books in Sweden. Myself, I wrote my first Bamse script back in 1991 and today I'm on staff as a "project leader".]

Now, on to the sneak peak. What you'll see below are some panels with Thomas own coloring. Made as a guide for the colorists. Unfortunately, very little of his coloring made it into the final version. But here it is for you to enjoy. :)[If you live in Sweden or Finland, where Bamse still is published, you can pick up your own copy on April 13 and compare this with the final version.] Although this is Thomas' comeback to the pages of the BAMSE comic book he has also recently made a few Bamse childrens books, some covers and a new comic book featuring Bamse for really young kids. It should also be mentioned that the story in 6 2010 is written by Jens Hansegård, wich is also writing scripts for the Scandinavian Donald Duck weekly.

BAMSE 6 2010 is number 498 since the start in 1973. So, number 500 is just around the corner... :)

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Wednesday = Barksday.Have you seen the entry for the Carl Barks story "Double Masquerade" on the Inducks site? Take a close look and you'll see that the plot is attributed to both Carl Barks and his editor Chase Craig. Well how do we know that for sure? Some times an indexer must rely on second, or even third hand information. In some cases credits are more dubious and comes in the form of rumours or "I heard this old timer say that his former colleauge might have remembered that..." Well, you get the idea.Then there are cases where the credits comes from actual written documents from the time the story was created. Like this one.

The source for Chase Craigs credit comes from the note below. A breif plot outline with suggestions. Sent to Carl Barks by Chase Craig. Finding stuff like this is like piecing together a giant puzzle. You know you'll never be able to find all the pieces, but it's none the less fun. :) [Click to enlarge image.]And to end todays post: two panels from Double Masquerade, first published in WDC&s 280.

Tuesday, 23 February 2010

Has been a doing this and doing that day today. But at least one drawing was finished. A "Disco Parrot"...

Since a disco parrot doesn't make a blog post, here's an oldie but goldie. An Emma & Sara page from 2005. And in english too! Do I have to mention that I like penguins?[Click to enlarge.]

Now, it's 20.00 here in Sweden. The country of snow, it seems. We haven't had this much snow in the south of Sweden since 1979, they say. And I believe them.Thinking about leaving the Studio for the evening. At least my stomach tells me to go home to get some food. But it's warm and cozy here and outside ... Brrr...

Hold on! Just went over to Johan Kimrin's cubicle here in the Studio and spoke to him about some Modesty Blaise related stuff, when I saw that we, without knowing it, had published an alternate, previously unpublished panel by Jim Holdaway in the latest issue of Agent X9!Will show it here later this week. :)

Five persons sending me a mail with the word "Griffin" as the subject will get a promo code, so that you can download it for free. :) sekvenskonst at telia dot com

Edit: Turned out that the promocodes only worked with US iTunes accounts. So there are still a few left.

Here's the description from the website: "A pocket-sized artbook with sketches and illustrations by Hedvig, a swedish illustrator. After she finished comic art school in Malmö, Sweden, she's been working as a comic book artist, mainly illustrating comics for kids and teens. Eventually she ended up in the game making industry as a concept artist. Browse through never before seen sketches and art, and some classics. Hopefully you'll find some inspiration on the way. 33 pages."[Note that even though the cover is the same as her latest, printed sketchbook from 2009 the contents are not the same. And you'll be able to zoom in on all of the images.]

Tuesday, 16 February 2010

Found this one on the back of a 1941 Adventures of Patsy daily. I have no idea who the artist was or if it ran for years. But it's always nice to see how the comic strip format was used to advertise stuff back in those days. Enjoy! (Click to enlarge.)

Sunday, 14 February 2010

Hedvig just sent me a bunch of drawings. Some characters from one of her projects. And with her permission I'm sharing them here. Enjoy!

Buck O'RueMy friend Germund is busy with his Paul Murry & Dick Huemer project: The complete Buck O'Rue comic strips and sundays. Well almost complete. He's still missing a few dailies and some parts of a few sundays. So I take the liberty to repeat a plea from Germund posted in 2008.

----- Now I've compiled a list of all the Buck O'Rue artwork Richard Huemer and I are missing to complete the book. I'm making a last attempt to locate it through a few blogs, so if you could help us by posting a search plea we'd be exceptionally grateful. Practically the entire run Jan 15, 1951 to late 1952 is ready and scanned from black/white proofs and I have already spent much of last year cleaning up the artwork.

The year 1951 is 100% complete, so all the missing art is from 1952. We would like to obtain the full 12-panel versions of the following sundays:January 20Feb 3May 4June 8,15,22,29July 6August 10,17,24December 14 and later, but these were probably never even produced.

The dailies are complete Jan 15, 1951 to July 19, 1952, except the week of July 7-12, 1952. These late dailies were probably never even published in newspapers at the time, but were most likely drawn.-----

If you can help Germund please mail him at germund_vw (at) yahoo dot com

While waiting for the book to be finished, here's a promotion pic of Buck and his horse Reddish drawn by Murry.

Ba-BaAnd speaking of book collections of newspaper comics. The Ba-Ba book seems to be forever delayed. I have finished my part a loooong time ago and now it's all in the hands of others. All we can do is wait I suppose...

Saturday, 13 February 2010

Have been too busy this week to keep up with the blog. Will try to make up for that this weekend with a few posts that I hope you will enjoy. :)Let's kick of the weekend with this:Picked up a nice piece of original art last week. A Zelda page/strip by Lina Neidenstam. This is a strip that really deserves to be seen and read by a larger audience. It's funny, provocative and entertaining. Highly addictive. It used to pe published in the Swedish Nemi comic book. But now that it was cancelled last month, I have no way of getting a new Zelda fix. Solved the abstinence, temporarily, with this original. :)

Bought it straight from Lina, who decorated the envelope with some photos and a drawing. (As always: Click image to enlarge.)The art itself looks like this. And here's what it looks like in the Zelda book, published last year. If you want your own piece, I'm sure Lina's got some left. (And they are pretty cheap too! Get some before someone with too much cash picks them all up.)

Monday, 8 February 2010

One thing I didn't know about Mel Graff was that he contributed to the KFS panel "Laff-a-day". Well, not until I was sent this image via facebook. A real oddity by the Adventures of Patsy/Secret Agent X-9 artist. [Thanks for sending this piece my way, Justin!]

If you want to grab the original art, it's up for sale on eBay right now. Just click HERE.

Thursday, 4 February 2010

This week wednesday comes on a thursday...Had a Barks post ready yesterday, and I had it on the blog for a few minutes. Then I found the answer to the question I posted. And thus I deleted it. But hey, I'll post the same image today. But the text that goes with it is new. :)

What puzzled me was this payment slip from November 1963. As you can see there's a payment for a 20 page story named "Voyage of Wending Wraith" and a cover to go with it.The only 20-pager from 1963 is "The Thrifthy Spendthrift". So what was this? An unknown Barks story???Well, I soon found out that the ship in "Cap'n Blight's Mystery Ship" was called "Wending Wraith". Someone must have typed 20 instead of 10. "Mystery" solved... The only reason for posting this again is that we now know the original title of the story. (Or is this in the new Barks books?) It would have fit neatly in the title panel. Unlike the Cap'n Blight title that looks somewhat squeezed in.

Update February 5:I found Carl Barks original plot in my drawers. And here it is for your enjoyment. A glimpse of how the master worked and what an idéa looked at the first rough stage. Before it was polished and fleshed out. "Don + the kids get shanghaied aboard a mystery ship bound for some part of the far ocean. Aboard is a cargo of explosives, guns, etc for a revolution somewhere. Perhaps a curious explosive device that is set to sink the ship if any navy ships appear. The captain and crew leave via lifeboats. Don + kids left aboard to be blown up. Don has eaten so much he can't get in lifeboat. No lifeboat will support him."

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

This membership card to the Disney Penthouse Club just sold on eBay. For $238.49.Not only are these membership cards seldom seen but this once belonged to Al Taliaferro! And it's signed by Les Clark too!!! The other signature seems to be Walt Pfeiffer's. A nice li'l gem. Congratulations to whoever bought it!I don't think I've ever seen any photos from the Penthouse Club. Are there any out there?